Duck and Cover
by acertainphilosophy
Summary: Edward is living on his own, haunted by memories of the past and bored with his new life. Fortunately for Ed, life is never easy for an alchemist.
1. Chapter 1

Edward ducked and surged forward, narrowly missing the enemy's fist and getting behind him. Seeing the advantage of his position, he jumped up onto the great lug and put his left arm around the guy's neck. He braced his feet against the brute's back, utilizing his somewhat smaller stature. Not that he was small or anything. A few short blows to the side of the head later with a metal fist and the man came crashing down like a very large and very stupid sack of potatoes.

Edward leaped from the collapsing mountain and landed neatly on both feet beside him. He hadn't even broken a sweat with this one. Really, the opponents they were giving him seemed to be getting weaker.

The crowd around the dirt-floored pit that served as the arena exploded into even more commotion, if that was possible, now that he'd won again. Mostly the shouts consisted of boos and curses with his name attached. They'd wanted more of a show. He didn't care. He wasn't fighting for them.

Smiling, he wondered how many of them had lost money to this fight. It served them right for evaluating the competition based entirely on size. Not that he was _lacking_ in size. Not at all. His opponents were all just unnaturally large. Yeah.

Deciding he'd had enough of the incessant noise in the around the ring, he looked up impatiently at the booth directly above the north wall, higher than the other seating. This was where the powerful, influential spectators sat, the ones who controlled the matches and financed the entire affair. It was also the central control system for the building, where they would turn down these infernal lights and open the gate that let him leave the arena.

Edward wanted to leave. They knew it. This had to be some sort of punishment for him. They had to know that he couldn't stand the noise and the lights and the confinement of the ring after the action was over. He actually couldn't really tell if the people in the booth hated him or regarded him with indifference, but knew that it must be one of the two. There was no one that felt anything else toward him. Not now.

Finally, the gate swung open simultaneously with the dimming of the lights, and he was free. He spun on his heel and walked away from the man on the floor with his shoulders hunched and head down. The corridor leading from the arena was narrow, black as pitch, and stank of mold and decay, but he was glad to leave the shouting behind and did so in silence.

The passage led to a showering and changing area, lit up brightly with blue-green tinted fluorescent lights that made the shadows darker. The floors were cheap, broken tile, missing in some places to reveal the concrete foundation. There were two lines of bench in between lockers that lined either side of the room, with sinks at the end closest to the entrance and showers at the other end that extended past the sides of the room to form a T. It reeked of sweat, mildew and rotting blood from past battles. Edward liked to pass through here as fast as possible, and luckily the room was empty, sparing him from any trouble. His match had been the last of the day, so everyone had already cleared out.

Edward swept through the room and was about to open the steel door on the other side when he heard something. A shuffling sound that was quiet but undeniably human. Okay, so maybe not so alone after all.

He kept his relaxed posture and let his eyes slowly meander the area. Whoever it was had obviously not wanted to be spotted. He looked around a few heartbeats more. Nothing. Oh well. They were no danger to him in hiding and it wasn't as if his being here was any secret.

His hand turned the rusty handle of the door and it creaked open. He left with his guard up, not being able to shake the feeling of someone watching him. The door led to an alleyway between two large buildings, one red brick and the other concrete. The alley was deserted aside from him and two metal trash cans.

Edward traveled quickly through the rough, tight grid of the city streets. Even after three years of living here, they all looked the same to him. He had memorized the one route he needed by counting the streets and turns alone. It was an automated action now, and he barely thought about it at all.

The city was dull and despondent, with muted colors and uniformity in all of its architecture. The skies were usually grey and the weather consisted only of fog, rain, and cool, cold or colder. This day there was a light drizzle that seemed to be in indecision about whether it should be fog or rain, and the chill in the air made him pull his coat tighter over his torso. Typical.

By the time his feet carried him to his apartment, he was soaked through and felt a cold coming on. He fumbled through his pockets for a moment before he found the key and unlocked the third door on the right side of the second floor hallway.

There was no warmth inside the walls of the small apartment. Of course there wasn't. The building's furnace had been in repair for a year now. It wasn't any better now that he was soaked and the metal on his right arm and left leg pulled heat from his body. He dumped his coat and boots to the side of the doorway where he left them in a heap.

Sighing, he went into the bathroom. It was only as large as could fit little more than six of him crowded together standing, including the shower space. He stood in front of the sink and looked into the mirror positioned above it. His face looked tired, with shadows beneath his golden amber eyes. He wrung his blond hair out with his hands. It was getting pretty long, but he couldn't afford a haircut right now.

He sighed again and realized he was sighing too often. The feeling of being watched stayed with him even in his own home. In his bathroom. He really hoped it was just a feeling.

Edward swayed and had to catch himself on the edge of the sink before he realized he was tired. Time to go to sleep. Who cares if the sun was still technically up; the clouds blocked it out anyway.

He closed the bathroom door carelessly and shuffled toward the main room when something caught his eye. He looked around in a double take and saw that the front door was ajar. He hadn't exactly come home in the best of moods, and he'd forgotten to check if it was closed. Damn, that was dangerous. He shut the door firmly and kicked it a little for good measure. It's a good thing he noticed it when he did. Otherwise, it might've been open all night… He shuddered at the thought.

He let himself become a zombie and shuffled blearily to the couch in the main room. No bed. Not that it was a problem for him. At this point, he wouldn't know what to do with all the space in a bed anyway. He plopped down onto it still fully clothed and waited for blessed sleep to take him.

Sleep never held dreams for him anymore. He was grateful. He'd had enough nightmares to fill a lifetime's want for them. He remembered a time when he was younger when night terrors greeted him every night, to the point where he feared going to sleep. Yes, he was definitely glad that that period of his life was over, in that respect.

Edward either bordered on sleep or was only a few minutes into it when something disturbed him. His eyes snapped open and he shot up into a crouching position on the couch ready for battle. His head swiveled around, trying to find the source of the disturbance. He found nothing. The stacks of books and papers lying haphazardly around the room looked the same, the doors and window were all shut tightly, the coat and boots still in a pile near the door. He relaxed a little and sat down on the couch. Something still felt strange.

It felt strange, and he didn't like it at all.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a noise. Edward turned his head on the arm of the couch and blearily raised one eyelid halfway. He grunted to himself. Not again. The noise was a quiet disturbance, a slight shuffle around the room. A page would flutter, a creak would come up from the rotting wooden floor, something. It was always a small motion, but it was enough to draw his attention.

Most people probably wouldn't have even registered it by now, but Edward was pathetically resigned to always be a little paranoid when it came to odd or unidentifiable occurrences. It came from experience.

So it was becoming irritating when every single time something moved in the night, he was practically forced out of his sleep to survey the room. It was nearing three in the morning, according to the analog clock resting on the wall near the kitchen. The disturbances had been persisting nearly hourly since he'd resolved to go to sleep, preventing what could have been a restful night. The rain pattered on the window and the cold wasn't actually that cold. Outside, it might've been miserable, but inside it made perfect conditions for sleeping.

Ed shoved his face into the arm of the sofa, not bothering to look around this time. At every sound so far he had searched endlessly for some sort of common cause, but nothing. Sometime around eleven he'd gotten up in a fit of rage and tore the apartment apart, toppling book stacks and checking between every crevice, behind every door. Hell, he'd even looked in the refrigerator. Nothing. Not any clue as to what could possibly be causing him so much stress.

And still he felt as though he was being watched by some sort of presence, the same feeling that had been with him from the time when he left the locker room.

He'd given up assuming the offensive position at one, gave up on rising at all at two, and now at three he wasn't even bothering to look around. He knew it was dangerous. But he was tired of these stupid noises that anyone should be able to ignore. Really, it was unfair.

He relaxed into a more comfortable position and tried to rest. He had to get up early tomorrow. He cringed. Today. It was already past midnight. The thought only added to his aggravation.

Edward forced himself to relax again. He really was tired. What a useless reason to be up all night. It was probably just another one of Al's cats wreaking havoc in the dorm.

No. His face crumpled. He felt familiar warmth behind his eyes. No, that wasn't it. Those days were over. No more Al, no more cats, no more military dorm. He wouldn't see those times any more, except in memory. That was all he had.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly (which was pretty much the same thing as a sigh but he decided he wasn't going to do that anymore) and sat up on the couch. He curled his legs up into his small frame and wrapped his arms around them. He definitely wouldn't be able to get any sleep now. A sudden chill hit him and he was glad he hadn't chosen to strip to his boxers.

Edward shifted forward, letting his head droop and bangs cover his face. What the hell was he doing? This whole situation was useless. But that was his life after all; facing tragedy and trying to fix things that could never really be fixed. It only ever made things worse, this endless cycle. Why didn't he ever learn? He curled tighter into himself. No matter how many times he asked this question, it never changed his course. He kept moving.

He let that one thought run through his mind, empowering him. Yes, he was Edward Elric, determined, prodigal, and… determined again. He had to keep moving, for Mom, for all the people he left behind. For Al. He shot straight to his feet, fist raised triumphantly. He would keep moving forward. He had to. Even if it was wrong, even if things turned out worse for it (which was unlikely to be possible at this point), he had to keep going. For the chance, the hope, that it could get better. That things could be fixed.

A chair squeaked in the corner.

"SHUT THE HELL UP," he yelled as he turned and threw a nearby book in the general direction of the sound. There. That was for interrupting his inner monologue. Even if the cause of the noise was still intangible, it felt good to exert some of the frustration that had been mounting since he left the arena. Really, it was still odd-

"Ow, shit, that hurts like hell, Fullmetal. How long have you been able to throw like that?"

Edward froze. The presence was no longer intangible.

* * *

**-philos**


End file.
